Online digital media systems enable users to search for, select, obtain pricing for and license digital media items for personal and commercial use. Uses for digital media items include commercial uses such as advertising, corporate events, incorporation into print publications such as newspapers and magazines, incorporation into online publications such as websites and blogs and personal uses, such as viewing movies and listening to music at home.
Digital media generally includes, but is not limited to, images, pictures, videos, illustrations, drawings, graphics, symbols, text, and audio recordings. Typical users of such content for commercial purposes include advertisers, publishers, media companies, graphic designers, editors, art directors, artists, writers, and the like.
Typically, users search for digital media items using search tools provided by an digital media system (DMS) across a network. For example, a Web-based user interface may be provided. Searches may take advantage of the media data, e.g. image, music or video data, or may take advantage of metadata or tags, which is descriptive information about individual media items. Metadata may be supplied by the capture or recording equipment, e.g. digital camera, or may be provided by the operator of the DMS or the owner, or contributor, of the media items.
To improve the accuracy of search a domain ontology, or controlled vocabulary, that hierarchically relates different concepts or keywords may be used. In such an approach, search terms entered by a user in a search box are automatically mapped by the DMS to keywords or concepts within the controlled vocabulary to improve consistency of data and accuracy of results. DMSs typically employ human editors, or reviewers, to add and edit metadata and to maintain a controlled vocabulary.
One method for finding digital media items within a DMS is to retrieve and display to the user search results that are similar or related to a media item designated by a user. For example, if a user selects a digital photo depicting a small dog then the DMS may provide a user interface control that the user can select to indicate that he/she wants to see additional photos that are similar to the designated or selected photo. In this case, additional photos of small dogs would be retrieved and displayed by the DMS.
In a typical search system, such as that provided by GOOGLE INC. of Mountain View, Calif., a “find similar” tool relies on data that it has collected regarding a media item, such as a digital photo or a web page, to identify similar items. Such collected information may include the number of users that have clicked on the media item, demographic information about the users that clicked on the item and the like. In contrast, a DMS which relies on human reviewers creates and maintains high quality metadata for media items in its digital media library. Thus, it would be desirable to improve relevancy of results generated by a “find similar” tool by taking into account such metadata.